Teva’s Approved Migraine Drug Fails Again to Blunt Rarer Headache

With a second big clinical failure, Teva Pharmaceutical is abandoning efforts to extend the use of its approved migraine drug to the treatment of cluster headaches, a rarer form of headache that typically affects one side of the head around the eye or the temple.

Teva (NYSE: TEVA) said Tuesday that an interim analysis of a Phase 3 study found that its drug fremanezumab (Ajovy) was unlikely to reduce the average number of headache attacks over a four-week treatment period, the main goal of the study. As a result, the Israel-based company, which has US headquarters in Parsippany, NJ, said it would end the program.

The drug’s first failure in cluster headache happened last June. At that time, Teva announced it would stop testing fremanezumab as a treatment for chronic cluster headaches, which last for weeks or months and do not have a remission period of longer than one month. The failure announced today was for episodic cluster headache—one to four short headaches per day lasting 15 to 20 minutes.

Teva said that it will continue to explore other applications for fremanezumab. A program in post-traumatic headache is currently in Phase 2 testing.